Making Do

During the seventies when we had high (for then, compared to our income) gas prices, higher inflation, and high unemployment we went green. Not that we called it that then, but because of the times it made sense to have a garden, keep chickens for eggs and have dairy goats for milk and cheese.

We learned a lot in those years. My mother-in-law lived with us and she was a young woman when the Great Depression started. My own mother was the same age and my grandmother was still raising young children when to bottom fell out of the economy. They all had some superior ways to survive tough times.

One of the first suggestions my MIL came up with was that we think about using cloth dish towels and table napkins instead of relying on paper products. A quick check showed that the towels and napkins could be tossed in the wash without and wouldn't increase expense by using more water and detergent. In turn that was an extra one hundred dollars a year saved, not to mention a number of trees. So even then green and saving money were mutually compatable.

We already had a small garden to supply some of our fresh vegetables. Since we did live in the country I began researching the idea of keeping a few chickens and rabbits. A friend immediately gave me the rabbits left over from her youngest son's FFA project, one buck and two does. They supposedly didn't reproduce and she didn't want to know what happened to them.

What happened was that since I didn't have rabbit hutches we put up a small A-frame shelter and fenced an area around it. The rabbits were turned loose and other than food, water and cleaning the pen left alone. A month later one of does had 8 bunnies. A couple of days later the second doe had eight as well. Doing pretty good there for non producers.

In the mean time I'd added a few chickens to the mix and learned that if you want eggs you'd better pay the extra money for hens. A mixed run of chicks yielded ten roosters and two hens. I couldn't bring myselt to butcher the roosters at first but once they began attacking us and using their spurs (we are talking stitches here folks) I changed my mind. We had them stewed because they were far too tough to eat anyother way.

We also purchased a couple of dairy goats, Nubians. I like goats. They are wonderful animals. But by the time we were through we had our Ph.D's in fencing. Goats require the very best fencing to keep them confined. Otherwise you might turn around one day and find them in your living room, looking for you. They did provide wonderful milk and cheese for a number of years. In a way I hated to give them up when we moved into town, but they were a lot of work.

I did not realize it while I was growing up but it is possible to grow a lot of food on a very small lot. We had a 40' by 60' lot in the middle of town with a large house on it. My grandmother protected us against the whims of fate by having yard that was almost completely edible.

Nearly every plant was in some way a food plant. We had a nice peach tree in the backyard. There was a fig tree in the sideyard. She canned these fruits and made jam from them as well. We also had pyracanthia which produces wonderful red berries around Thanksgiving and Christmans time. These make a good jelly as well. There were rose bushes that produced large rose hips; a fruit that is very high in vitamin C. She had pepper bushes that gave her peppers she would pickle in vineger. She also had various lilies that produced edible tubers of some sort. there was a speckled bean that she planted every year that wound its way up a pecan tree (nuts are a good source of oil and protein) and they would produce enough beans to provide meals for the next year and still leave some seed for replanting.

Since San Antonio Texas was aminable to keeping small livestock (and still is, you can keep a few hens even now) within the city limits we always had a couple of hens. Every Easter we would go to the Sears and Roebuck farm store and buy several chicks. Grandma didn't hold with the dyed chicks in the five and dime stores, but she'd always let me get some pretty Rhode Island red chicks or some Domineckers which were black and white. I got to raise them as pets and then they gave us eggs.

I think it may be time to brush off all these old tricks and update them for our modern world. The next couple of years may be as interesting as the thirties and seventies were.

Lazy Trainer Tip

Look around your place and see if there are ways you can insure you and your family have basic needs met even in the toughest of times.